School's closure leaves Auburn woman in the lurch

Anna Yetkie, a 39-year-old single mom from Auburn supporting two young girls, is getting a taste of how it feels to be caught in the wheels of state bureaucracy.

Until Wednesday of last week, she had been collecting state unemployment and attending school at the American Career Institute, a for-profit jobs training school based in Springfield. She was required to go to school in order to receive the unemployment benefits.

Since October, Ms. Yetkie had been taking courses five days a week in graphic design and Web design at ACI's Framingham campus. She said she was on track to graduate with an associate's degree in May. Her lowest grade, she tells me, was an A-minus.

But after she left class on Wednesday, she began hearing rumors that the school — which had four other campuses in Massachusetts, as well as in Maryland — was shutting down. Later that day, she received a “Dear Student” email from the school that began:

“We have greatly appreciated the opportunity to provide you with high-quality, career-focused training. Regrettably, American Career Institute is being forced to close on January 9, 2013. The owners had to make the difficult decision to close the school due to its recent and unanticipated inability to access additional credit from the school's lenders. Without access to this credit, ACI is not able to continue operating.

“As of January 9, 2013, all ACI campuses will close. Despite the necessity of a sudden closure, ACI remains committed to its student body.”

I called the school's Braintree campus, where I heard a recorded message. There was some information there about how the state can help students. Tellingly, there was nothing about how ACI could help its students.

The message ended, “We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.”

Ms. Yetkie is scrambling to cancel payments on some of the $16,000 in tuition she was scheduled to pay to the school.

What came as even more of a shock to Ms. Yetkie than the sudden closure of ACI was the reaction of the state's Office of Labor and Workforce Development to her predicament. The agency oversees unemployment claims.

Her case worker told her that because she was no longer a student, she no longer qualifies for unemployment, and the state will not issue her a check next week.

“Why are they punishing me?” Ms. Yetkie asked. “I'm the victim here. We students didn't cause this.” If ACI didn't up and close without warning, she would be happily working on her degree, she said.

“OK, I can understand if I left school voluntarily, you cut off the check. I get that,” she said. “But what could I have done? It's not like I quit school.” One day, she goes to school like normal. The next day, there is no school. How does blaming her make any sense?

On Friday, the state relented on its hard stance.

“These claimants will be given four weeks to find an approved training program to replace the services provided by ACI,” said Michelle Amante, director of the Department of Unemployment Assistance, in a prepared statement.

The state Division of Professional Licensure is working with all the affected ACI students to find them another school, so they can complete their degrees without starting over. The division said on its website last week:

“We have preliminary information at this point and are working expeditiously to get students placed in teach-out programs and to resolve financing issues,” said Undersecretary of Consumer Affairs Barbara Anthony. “We are very troubled by the abrupt closing, the apparent lack of notice, and the ramifications for students; we are committed to getting to the bottom of this.”

The attorney general's office has also launched an investigation.

About 1,400 students from five locations in Cambridge, Springfield, Braintree, Framingham and Woburn are affected, the DPL said.

The DPL said it is trying to obtain “agreements with other occupational schools with similar programs for students interested in continuing their education. The agencies are also looking into options for reimbursements for any money paid for courses that have not yet been taken and how students might be able to discharge their loans for uncompleted programs.”

Want to guess where Ms. Yetkie found ACI? It was on the list of approved training schools provided to her by the Department of Workforce and Training — the same agency that is now threatening to stop her unemployment checks because she is no longer enrolled in school.